I'm Back...Let the Waiting Game Begin

First an update:
I found a dress pattern and a highly possible final fabric! My mock-up dress is due in November and I couldn’t be more excited—I finally feel like I’ll have a dress I’ll love! If you are really struggling to find the right dress and you have a friend/relative/acquaintance who is a skilled seamstress, I would strongly recommend considering and exploring the custom-made dress route. It feels incredibly satisfying and fulfilling. You can search some patterns here.

And now this:
Having never planned a wedding before, I by no means consider myself an expert. Thus, I am more than happy to take any advice I can get. So when my future mother-in-law tells me that wedding planning really all happens in the last two weeks before the wedding, I take this to heart, and feel slightly disheartened. I, of course, already knew this deep down, but foolishly allowed myself to believe that my near obsessive organization and above average planning skills would afford me the chance to softly coast through the month before the wedding. Sure I would have to tie up a couple of loose ends, finish any unfinished business and just generally oversee that all is still well, still fully planned, but the hard stuff would be done. Alas, I now fear what can only be certain reality: I’ll be planning like crazy and rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off right up until the last minute. Oh how relaxing. No wonder someone invented the honeymoon!

It occurred to me, on the flight back from Michigan (uplifted greatly by thoughts of my dress) that preparing for a wedding is a bit like preparing for an old-fashioned battle. It is important to plan ahead, get all your reinforcements in order. Your soldiers need to be trained. They need to be stocked with proper ammunition, armor, protection. You need to scout out territory, be prepared to attack from all sides. You need to know ahead of time the difficulties you’re likely to meet, need to prepare for possible surprises. But in the end, no matter how much you have prepared, how well you have planned, a battle’s not a battle until some General yells fire, until one side starts to charge--and then who knows what might happen.

Maybe the flowers you chose with such painstaking contemplation will begin to wilt halfway through the celebration. Perhaps one of your maids gains too much weight and can’t fit into her dress, or another loses a ton, and looks like she’s drowning in hers. The officiant gets stuck in traffic. Or maybe it’s the groom who’s running late. Your heel slips on your first step down the aisle, you roll your ankle and have to limp the rest of the way to the altar. You can plan and plan and plan, but you can never be sure that everything will go off without a hitch.

So now, and next month and every month after that, all the way up to the last two weeks before the wedding, and on through those weeks as well, it is probably best to just take a lot of deep breaths. Keep on preparing those troops, lining up reinforcements. And in the end, be willing to accept chaos. Because when the smoke all fades, and the people disperse, and the wedding comes to its end, chaos or not, you’ll be married and if you’re lucky, you’ll soon be on your way to a nice relaxing honeymoon.